Contents

Occurrences

Locke was seen playing a board game, during lunchbreak, with one of his colleagues. The game appeared to consist of a Risk board and generic plastic army men, but is probably meant to strongly resemble Axis and Allies. ("Walkabout")

A similar game was played by Locke, Sawyer, and Hurley at the Barracks. This was the 2005 "library" edition of the game with triangular blocks rather than figurines of soldiers. ("The Shape of Things to Come")

The same game was seen open on a table in Benjamin Linus' house in 1977. ("Dead Is Dead")

Locke claimed Backgammon is a better game than Checkers, as it dates back 5,000 years. ("Pilot, Part 2") Locke was referring to the Mesopotamian Royal Game of Ur, which is also related to the Egyptian game of Senet.

Walt was seen beating Hurley, even though Hurley claimed he was once ranked 17th in a tournament. Hurley lost $83,000 through his Backgammon games with Walt, who doesn't know that Hurley is good for the money. ("All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues")

Dogen is seen spinning a baseball on his desk. When Jack enters the room, he asks him what it is and Dogen dryly responds, "It's a baseball." ("What Kate Does")

Jack sets up a television in David's room so he can watch the Red Sox ("Lighthouse")

The picture on the wall of David's room in Jack's house is of Dodger Stadium in LA, and in the photoset in David's room at his mother's house he is wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers hat. ("Lighthouse")

All of the "numbers" are retired numbers of the New York Yankees: 4- Lou Gehrig; 8- Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey; 15- Thurman Munson; 16- Whitey Ford; 23-Don Mattingly; 42- Jackie Robinson (whose number was retired by every baseball team by order of MLB) and eventually also Mariano Rivera. Kate's number, 51, belonged to Bernie Williams whose number may be retired soon but is not yet retired.

Locke finds a computer that allows him to play chess against an automated opponent in the Flame station. Mikhail claims the computer cannot be beat, but Locke manages to unlock the Flame video by winning a game. ("Enter 77") The board setup is taken from an actual game, the 16th game of the 1985 World Championship match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. However the final move shown is not actually checkmate as white can interpose a bishop.

People in the background of Sayid's Paris cafe are playing chess. ("Enter 77")

The Man in Black found a game on the beach that was a variation of Senet. He and Jacob frequently played the game with each other — Jacob using white stones as playing pieces, the Man in Black using black stones. When Jacob laid the dead bodies of Mother and the Man in Black together in the cave, he placed one black and one white stone from the game in a pouch, which he set in his brother's hand. ("Across the Sea") Centuries later, Jack discovered the skeletons and found the two stones in the pouch. ("House of the Rising Sun")

Minor occurrences

The Brisbane Bronco's arch rivals, the North Queensland Cowboys, are seen on an advertisement in the newspaper being read by Jin at Sydney International Airport. ("House of the Rising Sun")

A Bledisloe Cup match between the Australian National Rugby Union team (Wallabies) and the New Zealand National Rugby Union team (All-Blacks) is shown on the television in the bar Sawyer drinks at with Christian Shephard. ("Outlaws")

Two pinball machines can be seen in the Barracks recreation room. One is the 1999 "Revenge From Mars", the other is the 1988 "Cyclone." When we visit the Barracks later in "LaFleur," purportedly in 1974, the "Cyclone" machine is visible, though it shouldn't even exist yet.

Games as a metaphor

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"I like to use the baseball metaphor which is, you can go to a baseball game and if you don't know a lot about baseball, I think you can enjoy it on one level as a casual viewer and you can enjoy it on a much deeper level as a regular viewer".

Metaphor: The removal of the dynamite was compared to the tenseness of the game of Operation.

Mouse Trap: Locke said, "One by one, you build the trap; shoe, bucket, tub. Piece by piece it all comes together. And then you wait 'til your opponent lands here on the old cheese wheel. And then if you set it up just right, you spring the trap."

Metaphor: Locke's description of Mouse Trap mirrored the con Locke's father orchestrated to steal Locke's kidney, and in a more general sense, the ongoing con of Locke by the Man in Black, giving him faith in the Island in order to occupy his body and kill Jacob.

Metaphor: Jack's bluffing in Poker was mirrored in his successful ploy to outwit Sawyer, and in Ben's ploy to lie to Locke.

Baseball:Christian Shephard told Sawyer, "You are suffering. But, don't beat yourself up about it. It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn series."

Metaphor: The futility of Sawyer trying to end his own suffering was compared with the futility of the Red Sox trying to win a World Series. (see also: Irony)

Half-Life

Sound bytes are used from Half-Life 2("Pilot, Part 1"): When the plane's engine explodes and debris rains down, a man is hit by a piece and the sound produced is virtually identical to that of a Combine soldier dying. The sound of the debris crashing is also identical to that of wood breaking in the game.

Jack's sightings of his father Christian("Walkabout"), ("The Greater Good") watching from a distance, wearing a blue suit, and walking away after a moment strongly resemble the recurring appearances of the "G-Man" throughout the Half-Life series.

Richard Alpert's appearance in the window viewing the newborn baby John Locke("Cabin Fever") is also nearly identical to a typical G-Man sighting. (It can even be said that Alpert himself bears a strong physical resemblance to a younger G-man.)

The Numbers

The objective of Connect Four is to get 4 discs in a row on a plane of 42 holes.

Backgammon consists of two sets of 15 checkers. There are 4 sets of six playable spaces. A die has six numbers on it, the same amount of Numbers there are. The doubling cube has the numbers 4, 8, 16 and 32 on it (which is 23 backwards). The most number of spaces (without being taken out of play) a piece can move if the player is not yet able to take their pieces off the board (which requires all the player's pieces to be in the last six spaces on their side) is 23.

In the game HORSE, the first two letters earned are H and O, the 8th and 15th letters of the alphabet.

Black and white

Several games are depicted or described as having black and white elements:

Locke specifically describes the pieces on a Backgammon board: "One side is light, and one side is dark." The playable spaces on the board also alternate with one being light and one being dark. There are four dice: two for the player playing white, which are white with black dots, and two for the player playing black, which are black with white dots.

The pieces on a chess board and the board itself are black and white.

The crossword puzzles are depicted as a grid of black and white squares.

Producers' commentary

I feel like we're playing a chess game. In the first six moves, we've lost our queen and two bishops, and the audience is saying 'They are the worst chess players in the world!' What they don't realize is that we're nine moves away from checkmating you. If we lose, we lose. But that's the play, and we're standing by it.

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See also

Outside references to Lost - by the games: PvP Online's Lost Role Playing Game, Ctrl+Alt+Del's parody of Command & Conquer 3, The Impossible Quiz web game, the game "Desert Island" in The Office, Half-Life 2